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Investigators scour through debris at Air Algerie crash site

The crash site of Air Algerie flight AH5017 is seen near the northern Mali town of Gossi in this undated handout picture released by ECPAD, the French Army Communication Audiovisual office, on July 25, 2014.

BAMAKO - French investigators Sunday scoured through the debris of a shattered Air Algerie jetliner in Mali's remote desert north to get to the cause of the third global air disaster in eight days.

Experts from France's Bureau of Investigations and Analyses agency (BEA) that probes air accidents arrived at the site late Saturday and began their delicate task.

"They will try to glean the maximum information," BEA chief Remi Jouty said in Paris.

Their work will take a "few days", he said, adding that they will examine the plane's data flight recorders and any other information including the prevailing weather conditions at the time.

"It is too early to make any conjecture" about the reason for the crash, he said.

French President Francois Hollande, who met families of some of the victims in Paris on Saturday, said the bodies of all 118 victims would be repatriated to France and a memorial would be erected at the site.

Officials who had already reached Mali's remote, barren Gossi area described a scene of devastation littered with twisted and burnt fragments of the plane.

No one survived the impact of Thursday's tragedy and entire families were wiped out.

France bore the brunt with 54 of its nationals being killed in the crash of the McDonnell Douglas 83, which had taken off from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso bound for Algiers.

Travellers from Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Algeria, Spain, Canada, Germany and Luxembourg also died in the crash, increasingly being blamed on bad weather that forced the pilots to change course.

Hollande said flags would fly at half-mast from government buildings for three days from Monday to mourn the victims.

In Burkina Faso, President Blaise Compaore met the families of the victims of diverse nationalities and opened an investigation into the tragedy.

Lebanese national Pierre Hage sought Compaore's help so that he could recover the "remains of my relatives either wholly or in part."